"And yet, when I actually read Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, what strikes me is not its similarity to Astrophil and Stella, but its differences, particularly in relation to gender issues. In place of the lively and at timeseven assertive Stella, there is the passive and victimised Pamphilia who cannot free herself from the perfidious Amphilanthus. Whereas Sidney seems deliberately to break sonnet conventions by creating not so much an idealised representation of remote feminine beauty as a living responsive human being who can act, Wroth allows her woman to remain inactive and helpless, the victim of another's behaviour."